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[Arthur Henry Hallam, Ob. 1833]
Grief Unspeakable V. I SOMETIMES hold it half a sin | |
To put in words the grief I feel: | |
For words, like Nature, half reveal | |
And half conceal the Soul within. | |
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But, for the unquiet heart and brain, | 5 |
A use in measured language lies; | |
The sad mechanic exercise, | |
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. | |
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In words, like weeds, I ll wrap me oer, | |
Like coarsest clothes against the cold; | 10 |
But that large grief which these enfold | |
Is given in outline and no more. | |
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Dead, in a Foreign Land IX. FAIR ship, that from the Italian shore | |
Sailest the placid ocean-plains | |
With my lost Arthurs loved remains, | 15 |
Spread thy full wings, and waft him oer. | |
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So draw him home to those that mourn | |
In vain; a favorable speed | |
Ruffle thy mirrored mast, and lead | |
Through prosperous floods his holy urn. | 20 |
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All night no ruder air perplex | |
Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright | |
As our pure love, through early light | |
Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. | |
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Sphere all your lights around, above; | 25 |
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow; | |
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, | |
My friend, the brother of my love; | |
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My Arthur, whom I shall not see | |
Till all my widowed race be run; | 30 |
Dear as the mother to the son, | |
More than my brothers are to me. | |
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The Peace of Sorrow XI. CALM is the morn without a sound, | |
Calm as to suit a calmer grief, | |
And only through the faded leaf | 35 |
The chestnut pattering to the ground: | |
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Calm and deep peace on this high wold | |
And on these dews that drench the furze, | |
And all the silvery gossamers | |
That twinkle into green and gold: | 40 |
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Calm and still light on yon great plain | |
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, | |
And crowded farms, and lessening towers, | |
To mingle with the bounding main: | |
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Calm and deep peace in this wide air, | 45 |
These leaves that redden to the fall; | |
And in my heart, if calm at all, | |
If any calm, a calm despair: | |
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Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, | |
And waves that sway themselves in rest, | 50 |
And dead calm in that noble breast | |
Which heaves but with the heaving deep. | |
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Time and Eternity XLII. IF Sleep and Death be truly one, | |
And every spirits folded bloom | |
Through all its intervital gloom | 55 |
In some long trance should slumber on; | |
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Unconscious of the sliding hour, | |
Bare of the body, might it last, | |
And silent traces of the past | |
Be all the color of the flower: | 60 |
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So then were nothing lost to man; | |
So that still garden of the souls | |
In many a figured leaf enrolls | |
The total world since life began; | |
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And love will last as pure and whole | 65 |
As when he loved me here in Time, | |
And at the spiritual prime | |
Rewaken with the dawning soul. | |
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Personal Resurrection XLVI. THAT each, who seems a separate whole, | |
Should move his rounds, and fusing all | 70 |
The skirts of self again, should fall | |
Remerging in the general Soul, | |
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Is faith as vague as all unsweet: | |
Eternal form shall still divide | |
The eternal soul from all beside; | 75 |
And I shall know him when we meet: | |
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And we shall sit at endless feast, | |
Enjoying each the others good: | |
What vaster dream can hit the mood | |
Of Love on earth? He seeks at least | 80 |
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Upon the last and sharpest height, | |
Before the spirits fade away, | |
Some landing-place to clasp and say, | |
Farewell! We lose ourselves in light. | |
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Spiritual Companionship XCIII. How pure at heart and sound in head, | 85 |
With what divine affections bold, | |
Should be the man whose thought would hold | |
An hours communion with the dead. | |
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In vain shalt thou, or any, call | |
The spirits from their golden day, | 90 |
Except, like them, thou too canst say, | |
My spirit is at peace with all. | |
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They haunt the silence of the breast, | |
Imaginations calm and fair, | |
The memory like a cloudless air, | 95 |
The conscience as a sea at rest: | |
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But when the heart is full of din, | |
And doubt beside the portal waits, | |
They can but listen at the gates, | |
And hear the household jar within. | 100 |
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L. DO we indeed desire the dead | |
Should still be near us at our side? | |
Is there no baseness we would hide? | |
No inner vileness that we dread? | |
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Shall he for whose applause I strove, | 105 |
I had such reverence for his blame, | |
See with clear eye some hidden shame, | |
And I be lessened in his love? | |
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I wrong the grave with fears untrue: | |
Shall love be blamed for want of faith? | 110 |
There must be wisdom with great Death: | |
The dead shall look me through and through. | |
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Be near us when we climb or fall: | |
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours | |
With larger other eyes than ours, | 115 |
To make allowance for us all. | |
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Death in Lifes Prime LXXII. SO many worlds, so much to do, | |
So little done, such things to be, | |
How know I what had need of thee? | |
For thou wert strong as thou wert true. | 120 |
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The fame is quenched that I foresaw, | |
The head hath missed an earthly wreath: | |
I curse not nature, no, nor death; | |
For nothing is that errs from law. | |
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We pass; the path that each man trod | 125 |
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: | |
What fame is left for human deeds | |
In endless age? It rests with God. | |
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O hollow wraith of dying fame, | |
Fade wholly, while the soul exults, | 130 |
And self-enfolds the large results | |
Of force that would have forged a name. | |
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The Poets Tribute LXXVI. WHAT hope is here for modern rhyme | |
To him who turns a musing eye | |
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie | 135 |
Foreshortened in the tract of time? | |
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These mortal lullabies of pain | |
May bind a book, may line a box, | |
May serve to curl a maidens locks: | |
Or when a thousand moons shall wane | 140 |
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A man upon a stall may find, | |
And, passing, turn the page that tells | |
A grief, then changed to something else, | |
Sung by a long-forgotten mind. | |
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But what of that? My darkened ways | 145 |
Shall ring with music all the same; | |
To breathe my loss is more than fame, | |
To utter love more sweet than praise. | |
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